No Light, but Rather, Darkness Visible
by flaurelcasfino
Summary: "You say you love me, right? Then come back inside." Filling in the missing scene from 3x08 and the flashback in 4x05. Or, Frank shows up unexpectedly and Laurel can't resist him for very long. Rated M, Flaurel, smut.


She knows that she's in danger as soon as she closes the door, twists the lock and shuts them in together. Not physical danger, despite the things she knows he's capable of. No, in that sense she feels safer than ever, when she's with him. But a different kind of danger rears its ugly head when they are alone: the danger of a relapse. She's an addict and he's her drug, the habit she just can't kick.

She knows all this. But still, she's invited him in.

She turns. Looks at him – really looks – and sees the man she used to know. He once was hidden, partially obscured by a well-groomed façade, slicked-back hair and three-piece suits, but now he's on display. He's standing centre-stage in the middle of a too-bright spotlight and there's nowhere to hide. The real him, the one he wanted her to know so badly. And now that she does, she's not sure what to make of him.

At least he has the decency to look ashamed. Eyes down, shoulders hunched, posture totally submissive.

Her stomach clenches tightly and her chest sinks at the sight of him. She feels relaxed, all of a sudden, more so than she has in months. She's Atlas and she's finally able to put down the weight she's been carrying with her for so long. It takes her longer than it should to identify this feeling as relief. She's relieved for his safety.

How many times in the last few weeks had she pictured him dead? Firstly, in the bathroom, before she pushed the door open. Then, every night, wondering where he'd gone. Then, after signing her soul away to her own personal devil, picturing Coalport as his final resting place. Even as she lay next to Wes, she'd think only of Frank, hope he was okay. Hope he wasn't. Wrestle with guilt over missing him, and guilt for wanting him dead, and guilt for letting Wes think she was over him.

"You could have called." The words slip out before she's given them permission to and his eyes finally lift to meet hers.

"What?" he croaks, voice cracked and pitiful.

"All that time," she says slowly, voice low. "You just left. You dropped that bomb on me and you just left. I know you got my messages; your mailbox was never full. If you care so much, why didn't you just call?"

"I'm sorry." His eyes swim with unshed tears and genuine sorrow that tears tiny, papercut fissures in Laurel's heart. "You know I didn't want to involve you…"

His repeated excuse makes her temper flare. "In what? Your twisted atonement plot? This vigilante killing spree mission to make up for your misgivings with Annalise? An eye for an eye, right? They hurt her, you hurt them back."

"It's not like that…"

"Well, what is it, then? I know everything, Frank. I know what you did to her… to her baby. What are you trying to accomplish here? You can't take all that back with revenge, you're just making it worse."

"I know, an' I get it. I get it now, that's why I'm back. I gotta face what I done. To her… to you." Frank takes a hesitant half-step forward. He purses his lips, looks away, looks back. His expression morphs constantly, every thought that flickers through his mind showing clear as day on his face. "I'm so… sorry, Laurel. I never meant to hurt you. You gotta know that."

She's not in a forgiving mood. "But you did. Hurt me."

His fists ball by his sides and she can see the self-loathing creep over him like a fog. But that doesn't stop her, her fury morphing into words that she spits at him like fire, intending to burn. "I don't know who you are, Frank. A long time ago you said that you wanted me to get to know you, the real you. But who is that? What did you want me to know?" She feels tears begin to pool across her eyes, a filmy, blurry layer, and she bites the inside of her cheek, desperate to hold them back. "You always said you'd done bad things, and I knew it was true, but… how could you want me to know any of this? Why did you make me fall for this… this fake version of you and then tell me that?"

Frank's expression is torn, his eyes wide and wild and desperate, his brow creased and lips downturned. "I don't know," he says, with the voice of a broken man. "I didn't know what to do, Laurel, I… I'm not good at this kinda stuff. I never… I never loved no one before, I didn't know what to do."

Her heart clenches at his words, and he draws her in all over again.

"I just knew that I wanted things to be different with you," Frank continues, "you weren't like any other girl I'd known. So I tried to be honest with you and I fucked up, I get it now, but all I was tryin'a do was make things right." He looks at her then and, for the first time, he's entirely transparent. His eyes are beseeching, begging her to see his truth. "I love you, Laurel. I know you don't believe me, but it's true. I just ain't no good at showing it."

The trouble is, Laurel thinks, she _does_ believe him. She'd be a fool not to. She can feel his eyes on her like a heavy blanket, can hear the sincerity in every syllable that falls from his mouth. She certainly believes he loves her. She's just not sure it's enough.

She can feel tears tracking their way down her cheeks now and she turns away from his gaze, wipes the back of her hand haphazardly across her face. She can't keep up with these wildly fluctuating emotions, a wild, tipsy kaleidoscope of feelings that can't hold onto long enough to put a name to, let alone comprehend, or control.

Frank stands a few feet away, a stoic and comforting presence while she breaks. They've been here before, a lifetime ago. Now, here they are again: the Type A rich girl and the Fishtown criminal, worlds that shouldn't be able to coexist but somehow still do.

The thing is, Laurel has always known her role in this strange, new, post-Sam life, even back then on Annalise's front lawn: she's the linchpin, the one that holds them all together. The Keating Five. The Kids. Annalise's little crowd of murderous groupies. Laurel's job is to anticipate the disasters way before they happen, and to diffuse each and every bomb as it comes, never knowing which is going to be the one to blow up in her face. But she never saw this one coming. The one where Frank was the killer, the culprit, the catalyst. She should have. She should have known it would be Frank that would destroy her. From that first time they came together in the hallway, hands roaming, lips seeking, hearts racing, they were doomed. A spark, too bright and hot to hold onto, that could light up the world in fury and fire and disaster.

And yet, when those flames had engulfed her, they hadn't felt like an impending apocalypse. She hadn't felt the dark clouds of certain doom. She'd felt like a phoenix bursting into flames, felt that she would someday emerge from the ashes stronger, better, brighter.

In the end, she'd just come out burnt.

Eventually, she manages to pull herself back together, force herself to turn back to him. "You know, I thought you were dead. So many times. I went to your apartment to talk to you and you weren't there. And I looked everywhere and then… then I saw the bathroom door was slightly open." Her eyes are on him but not focused; she's seeing the memory replay in her mind's eye. "I thought I'd find you in there. I could picture it, clear as day. The blood. You'd look like you were sleeping. I felt so sick, and I almost couldn't look. All I could think was 'no'.

"You would have deserved it, death," she states; a fact, not an opinion, "but I didn't. I didn't deserve to lose you like that. No answers, no explanation, no chance to get over you." She's back in the room, now. Her focus is on him fully and she can see him shrink under her measured stare. "But that's what you did to me, when you left. And, worse, I had to hear your reasons from everyone else. Your father, Annalise… Wes." The last name sticks to her tongue, she has to push it out like a lead weight.

Frank looks genuinely pained as his misdoings are laid out before him, as she forces him to confront her pain. His eyes squeeze tightly shut and his shoulders sink. "I'm sorry."

Laurel's silent for a brief moment. Suddenly, she's so tired. She doesn't want to persecute him anymore. "I know," she acknowledges, and then she sighs. "Do you want a drink? I know I need one." She doesn't wait for a response, just stalks through to the kitchen, pours out some whisky into two crystal glasses and waits for him to follow. Because he always does. It's funny, really, that he calls Wes the Puppy when he's the one following her around like a little, lost stray.

True to form, Frank appears moments later. He watches her with careful eyes as she passes him the second glass, then takes it with a grateful, "thanks."

They drink together silently for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts about the other.

Unexpectedly, it's Frank that first takes a tentative step out into the quiet. "Are you happy?"

Laurel leans back against the counter, swirls her whisky and gives a wry smile. "I'm not sure happy is the right word." She shrugs. "I'm okay."

Frank hesitates, but then comes over and leans beside her, a half meter away. "I'm glad."

She can smell him now he's this close. It's funny; she'd forgotten how she'd liked the way he smelt. A very faint hint of aftershave covering up something deeper. It's a comforting smell, like the crackling wood of a burning fire, like the crisp freshness of night air. He smells of winter, she realises. And underneath all of that, a hint of musk, sweat. That's the most powerful element, the one that clouds her mind. It takes her back to mornings spent between his sheets, between her legs, between chaos and sanctity.

Her gut clenches. Pulse quickens, throbs through her neck like rapid morse code, rushing a message through the rest of her body, intensifying everything. It makes her want.

She drinks, a big gulp.

She had been tipsy earlier but the shock of the evening's events had quickly sobered her up, but now… now she can feel herself slipping back under again. And the warm waves of inebriation are welcoming. But they are also dangerous. They loosen her tongue and drag up words that shouldn't be said. "It's not the real kind."

Frank gives her a confused sideways glance. "What?"

Laurel can't look at him so she fixes her eyes on the doorframe opposite her instead as she answers his earlier question. _So you love him? Like a... brotherly, we've-been-through-a-lot-together kind of love or... the real kind?_ "Wes," she clarifies. "It's not the real kind of love. It's not really love at all." She feels sick as she says this. It's a deep betrayal, and she is the worst kind of person. But it is the truth. And Laurel's trying to be more honest these days, especially with herself.

"It's okay if it is," Frank mutters, gracefully. "I get it. You and 'im… you got history."

She purses her lips and braves a glance at him. He's ever so slightly closer. When she speaks, her voice is barely more than a whisper. "So do we."

The air is thick around them, alight with possibility.

"Yeah," he agrees and his voice is hoarse and deep and sends shivers down her spine.

There's a pause as they watch one another, and then the walls they've been carefully curating begin to crumble before their very eyes. Electricity crackles between them, palpable and real in the surrounding air. A simple chemistry that was present from their very first meeting in Annalise's study and one that, for better or worse, sucks her back in every time.

It happens just like the first time. There's nothing between them and then: everything.

Neither one initiates it, it just happens. Like stars aligning, or planets rotating, or the continual passing of time, it's an inevitability.

When his lips touch hers, blood boils fiercely under her skin, throbs through her in waves. She gasps into his mouth and feels something awaken within her that's been missing for a long time. His hands snake around her middle and pull her closer to him, her chest pressing up against his, drawn together, hearts pulsing in one simultaneous rhythm. She tears her mouth from his and tips her head back, needing to suck in a breath of fresh air to clear her mind, to not be totally absorbed in the cloud of Frank that is engulfing her. He is undeterred, his lips moving quickly to her neck, kissing, sucking, memorising her and turning her to a pile of jelly, her bones loose and rattling within her.

She's desperate for him, her thoughts an incoherent fog of lust, and it's a feeling she wasn't sure she'd ever experience again. But he's here and she's here and his lips are trailing her collarbone and she knows she shouldn't but it's already too late to turn back and, fuck, she doesn't want to admit it, even to herself, but she's missed him so deeply, and she's so glad he's okay, and she wants this so badly, it aches.

Her hands find his back of their own accord, roam across the taut muscles there, feel him tense at her touch. She feels so powerful when she has him like this. His careful movements across her neckline falter, but only for a second and then he's back at it, plotting a map across her skin, punctuating each point with a kiss, and leaving a flaming trail in his wake.

She gasps out a breath as his tongue swirls lower, his hands glide up and settle over her delicate black bra, the bra she picked out for someone else to see. His fingertips brush across the swell of her breasts with a feather-light touch and then they sweep down, trace around her nipple over the thin fabric, and it responds sharply, hardening on cue. He rolls it between his fingers, pinches gently, knows exactly what will get her hot and wet and desperate.

He paws at her top then, pulls clumsily at her until the material is discarded. Then Frank helpfully removes his own t-shirt and reveals himself to her, his abs striking, chest heaving. His eyes are low, taking her in.

She reaches out, holds him by the back of his head and presses her lips firmly to his, forcing him to mould to her, let her set the pace. He groans into her mouth, meets her force and gives as good as he gets. He surprises her when he bends slightly, his hands come around her thighs. He lifts her legs and she happily wraps them around him, moaning when her core brushes up against him.

He carries her to the counter, sets her on the edge and kisses her deeply as his hands go to her hips and undo the buttons on her jeans. He pulls away to slide the pants down over her ass and then off her legs and then she watches as he dips his head, takes her hard nipple between his lips and – fuck. Laurel's lost to the sensation, squirming under his touch and making noises that she's sure would embarrass her if she had the presence of mind to care.

His hands drift down until he strokes a finger around the edges of her panties, so close to where she's throbbing, but not anywhere near close enough. His mouth falls away from her as he sucks in a breath and then hisses, "Fuck, Laurel, you're so wet."

Encouraged by her blatant arousal, Frank doesn't waste any time. He sinks down before her onto his knees until he's placing careful kisses along the inside of her thigh, driving her crazy.

"Oh God…" The moans he's eliciting from her are barely human, come from some deep place inside her that has been closed off since he left. She's positively leaking now, the apex of her thighs damp and glistening with evidence of her need for him. Laurel's not usually one to beg but she can't take control of herself, can't seem to stop the pleas tumbling from her lips. "Please, Frank…"

And he can't resist her, can deny her nothing anymore. He knows now that this goddess before him deserves the world ten times over and he's more than willing to comply with her every demand. More than that, he _wants_ to be the one to fulfil her desires and, boy, does he fulfil them.

His tongue makes delicate circles over her clit, long strokes exactly where she wants him, savouring her taste like the finest delicacy. His fingers come up, too, push inside of her, curl into the best places and play her like an instrument; an instrument that only he can get to truly sing.

Laurel doesn't know what it is about Frank, why he can make her feel this way. It's as though he knows her body better than she does; he anticipates every wave of arousal, meets it and pushes it, makes her feel better than she's ever felt at the hands of anyone else, even herself.

"Oh… oh yes… fuck, that's so good." Her fingers find the top of his head, run across the smooth, short hair, a new sensation for Laurel. She grasps at him, holding him between her legs as her whimpers and gasps pitch higher and higher with the rising ecstasy.

It doesn't take long before she's clenching around his fingers, pussy walls fluttering rapidly like a hummingbird's silent wings, the orgasm so powerful that she's rendered mute, her lips moving around a noiseless moan.

He stays there, prolonging her climax as long as he can, but looks up and watches her as she comes undone above him.

When she descends from her high, limbs heavy as armour, she lets herself glance down at him and what she sees sends a thrill of warmth through her. His stormy ocean eyes are hungry with desire, pupils as dark as absolute black, but there's something else there, too. He looks at her the way a blind man would at the sun, the way a child would stare at a glinting Christmas tree, the way a mother would memorise every minutiae of her child's image. Frank looks at her like he adores her. More than that, Frank looks at her like she's worth adoring.

"Bedroom," she breathes, an instruction. And there is no version of reality in which he doesn't obey.

He carries her, legs wrapped around his waist, and she kisses along his jawline, acquainting herself with the parts of Frank she's never known. They separate, momentarily, for him to lay her down on the bed and rid himself of his pants, but he disrobes in record time, joins her on the bed mere seconds later. He hovers over her, carefully, and then comes back to her, lips meeting lips in a kiss that's less of a battle, now. Her walls are well and truly down, beaten and battered by his persistence.

She lets him in, tongues orchestrating a careful dance, and she can taste herself on him and it only sets her body humming again.

It's quicker this time, neither one of them wanting to wait. He slides her panties down her legs, pushes his own boxers off, his cock impossibly hard and ready between his legs. Laurel reaches down, rubs herself until her hand is coated in wetness and then reaches out for him, takes him in her palm and strokes a slow rhythm.

He hisses at the sudden contact. "Fuck, I've missed this." His eyes flutter closed as she takes the power seat. "I've been wanting you for so long."

Laurel pushes at him, forces him on to his back and then straddles his thighs, sitting over him and looking down as she continues to stroke his cock. "What is it that you want?" she asks, voice breaking in the middle and betraying how much she wants it, too.

"I want to be inside you," he groans.

"You're going to have to do better than that." She leans down, breasts brushing against him, and whispers in his ear, "Tell me _exactly_ what you want."

"Shit, Laurel. I want your pussy around my cock, I want you to ride me hard. I wanna flip you over and fuck you so fast and so hard you forget your own name. I want to make you come, feel you come around my cock."

With a moan, she finally gives into what they both crave. She lines herself up, prepares to take him, but then: "Wait." His voice stops her. "You still on birth control?"

She's not. She looks at him, frustrated with his insistence on pulling her back to the real world.

He can read her answer on her face. "I ain't got anythin' on me."

Neither does she, used the last one earlier that day. Wes would bring some over next time, he'd said.

She's angry all over again. At herself for not thinking of this. But mostly at Frank for forcing her to acknowledge how wrong this all is. For making her remember Wes and their unnamed but certainly happening relationship.

She sighs, pushes the thoughts away. She sets her face into a straight line. "It'll be fine," she mutters, refocusing on the task at hand before she changes her mind altogether.

"You sure?"

"Shut up, Frank," she says, and then she sinks down onto him, taking him fully inside her, and he goes deep, fills her perfectly with a delicious pressure, a stretching sensation that causes her head to fall back, her fingernails to scratch lightly across his chest, her pussy to clench tightly around him.

Everything outside of this moment, this sensation, this erotic nirvana is forgotten.

"Fuck you feel so good," Frank manages to gasp out.

She leans forward, lifts her hips slightly so that she can sink back down, slowly, taking her time, letting her body adjust to him. Letting her soul adjust to him. Letting her anger, her pain, her aching subside. When she meets his gaze, it sends sparks through her and Laurel's heart stutters in her chest. It's always been intense with Frank, but this… this is something else.

She picks up the pace then, uncomfortable at the intensity of the slow, deliberate motions, turns it back to a hard, fast fuck. After all, that's what they've always done best.

He grunts below her, hips rising to meet her thrusts with his own. Her clit presses against him with each thrust, sending her higher and higher until her movements become disjointed and stuttering, her rhythm breaking like a wave.

Sensing that she's losing the battle to stay in control, Frank flips them over, picks up where she left off with hard, fast strokes.

"Oh, yes, Frank," she moans. "Right there… I'm so close."

"Fuck, Laurel, come for me," he murmurs. His hand slips between them, finds her swollen clit and fingers it gently.

She moans, loud.

"That's it, baby," he coaxes, voice strained but soft, encouraging, pushing. He speeds up his thrusts, takes her, reminds her that she's his. "Let me see you come."

The world stops.

She falls over the edge with a scream, loud and guttural and piercing. She thrashes underneath him, her hands balling in the sheets beside her, grounding her as she flies. Her mouth is open, eyes squeezed shut and her cheeks are flushed, the picture of beauty.

He feels her cunt clench around him over and over, squeeze him in an uncontrollable, throbbing pulse, and he's done in. The assault of the sight of her, the sound of her, the feel of her is too much. He swells inside of her and groans out her name, voice tight, as he pushes deep inside one final time and stills, releasing inside of her in long, hot streams.

They lie together for a timeless moment, panting and gasping, bound together and intertwined.

Then, he pulls away, falls down beside her and they both stare up at the ceiling.

Laurel waits for the guilt to hit, the realisation of what she's done. It doesn't.

"You… okay?" he asks, after a long moment.

She turns her head, looks at him. Nods. "I'm okay."

Silence stretches between them for a while. Then, Laurel shifts, gets up. She goes to the bathroom, goes through the motions of cleaning up, pulls on her pyjamas. Can't meet her own eye in the mirror. When she returns to the bedroom, Frank is perched on the edge of the bed, clad only in boxers. He looks up at her, uncertain and afraid. "This ain't… why I came here. For this."

"I know," Laurel says simply.

He stands. "I can… go."

She laughs once. "Where?"

He just stares back at her. He's got nothing and they both know it.

Finally, she smiles. A tiny, small, tentative smile. "Stay."

"You don't have to…"

"I want you to stay." Laurel crosses the room, pulls back the comforter and climbs into the bed. She pats the space next to her. "Come on."

Frank hesitates, but complies. Her lost stray, come home. He settles in next to her, leaves a space between them. The space is only a foot long but seems wide enough to fit a whole universe. Laurel flicks off the light and snuggles down under the blankets.

She knows she should feel guilt, anger, frustration. But right then, all she can feel is total calm, a gentle joy. In that moment, all is right in Laurel's world. It will change in the light of the morning, she's certain of that. But, for now, this is her reality. And it's enough.

She crosses the border Frank set so carefully, comes across to rest her head on the warm hardness of his chest. He tenses, his entire body going stiff, and she sighs. "Relax," she mutters, "it's just one night."

It takes a moment, but he does relax eventually. His arm comes out, curls around her, holds her close.

She feels adored again, loved, worthy. She yawns, the brink of sleep reaching its long, spindly fingers out to her. Just before she's pulled under, she murmurs against his chest, "Don't leave like that again."

The last thing she hears, whispered against the night, is a solitary word. It's spoken like a reverence; as sincere, impassioned and permanent as prayer itself. "Never."


End file.
